The purpose of the paper was to reflect on trends in and policy process of lifelong educational policies in Korea. The trends in lifelong education policies in Korea can be classified into three stages: formation of adult basic education from 1945 to 1950s, establishment of adult and continuing education by the Government initiative from 1960s to 1970s, and construction of lifelong education system from 1980s to 1990s. Following the logic of forward mapping, the Korean central government has initiatively developed and implemented most of policies in the field of lifelong education. Also, most of the educational policy-making has been regulated by the central government structure and, in particular, by the Ministry of Education & Human Resources. There have indicated several current lifelong educational policy directions, including establishing the infrastructure promoting lifelong learning, providing the opportunity for lifelong learning for higher education, and providing opportunities for lifelong learning for the minorities. Furthermore, there have suggested some problems related to lifelong educational policies, such as low participation rate in lifelong learning, inflexibility of students’ transfer between schools, low social acknowledgment for the student’s academic achievements from lifelong education institutes, and insufficient investment in lifelong education.